Pecna Cipka (Tamara?)
"Cipka" is "lace" (inclusive, not necessarily bobbin), but that's as much as I know, Slovenia being a 48hr train ride away from Poland, and not a place I've ever visited :)
the footside is the easy part!! I can't imagine how my picots would look on the left!!
My feeling precisely :) Footside, you learn to make on both sides, with the first insertion you make. But, double picots (single knotted, yes, on most plaits, but, *double*...)?
But Devon's question had to do with determining how a lace was made, once it is no longer on the pillow.
I'm partially responsible :) And *wholly* interested in any/all responses to the question Devon posted. My imp of perversity, which I shared with Devon, woke up to the following statement in Marta Cotterell Raffel's book "The Laces of Ipswich":
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"Mrs Robbins's cape is a beautiful example of how Ipswich lace was worn. It is interesting to note that the cape was not made by the same person who made the lace -- the lace is sewn onto the garment with the wrong side facing out. This detail is something only a lacemaker would see after close study"
(p 121; photos of cape and detail of lace pp 120 and 121, figs 76 and 77)
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I wouldn't have expected the lacemaker to have been the one who made the cape and attached the lace to it in the first place, so that wasn't all that "interesting to note", but the "wrong side out" *really was* -- how on earth?
Originally, Devon thought that non-continuous gimp might be an indication for the direction of work (and, hence, the relative positions of the foot and head): you start at the top of an element, with a pair and a smooth line, you end at the bottom, with the gimp (hopefully <g>) secured by doubling back through at least a single (prefrably more) pair each side of the crossing of the two final pairs. So, when you see a gimp double line and "whiskers", you know that's the bottom of the element, and you can see on which side the foot is.
Yes, but... How do you know you're not looking at it upside down or wrong side up?
Cotterell claims it's possible and, apparently, Lia Baumeister agrees, because the reproduction of the lace (pricking #6) is done "t'other way 'round". Thus *changing the lace*: in the original, the "whiskers" are where they might be considered an intentional part of the design; in the reproduction, they're *not*. While I admire the ingenuity of the original lacemaker who made lemonade when life handed her a lemon (I hate having to deal with non-continuous gimp <g>), I'm underimpressed by the reproduction...
I would imagine that the only way would be to find those tell-tale
(but hard to see...) places where threads were joined... adding in, throwing out... all done on the "back" side.
First, none of those are reliable as indicators; added and removed pairs were sheared flat with the lace... on the back side, yes, but not really visibly so. Secondly, this is a relatively simple pattern -- no pairs are added or thrown out. Besides, silk (the fiber of this lace) is slippery; it wouldn't be surprising if a thread end escaped "confinment" and showed up on the other side, esp after being released from the pins, handled, washed... Same's true about the non-continous gimp; just look at the old laces and see how many original *single* "circles" (honeycomb "pea" surrounded by gimp) have become half-circles over time, even in cotton lace (cheers me up no end to see those, as it tends to happen to me more frequently than I like <g>)... There aren't even any spiders in it -- those, possibly, *might* indicate the right/wrong side of work, if the central pin was left in long enough and the spider wasn't re-tensioned -- pinless -- soon enough to flatten out (the "bump" around the pin faces you). But, after 200 yrs of use, even that is doubtful
So theoretically, the knots (if there were any...)
Tsk, *knots*???... :) Those get sheared off too. So, on a black lace, it was possible to miss one or two... But, the cape is *large*, and the edging is *long* (minimum of 3yds would be my *conservative* estimate; likely more)... Even if the original lacemaker applied the lace herself, she'd have been excused for missing those; it would have taken a cosmic coincidence for someone (Cotterell or others) to happen to come accross one, 200+ yrs later...
or "bridges" would only be visible on the back. "Eyelashes" could be seen from either side, I imagine.
OK; don't know what "bridges" or "eyelashes" are. Suspect that "eyelashes" are what I think of as "whiskers", and "bridges" are pairs that are carried behind the work? No pairs are carried in this pattern and, in PG, they'd have been carried with the gimp anyway, anchored to the work with the gimp, not hanging loose on the wrong side as in a knit sweater of many colours. So you'd get the same "image" from either side. The cut off ends sometimes stay on the back, but sometimes don't...
So, *I still want to know* how come Cotterell is so sure the lace was attached wrong side up... I'm no expert, but I *have* been making lace for almost 14 yrs, and, the only time I can tell which side is up is when:
a) it's Russian lace with *raised* gimp (gimp in relief)
b) it's a piece with raised, or raised-and-rolled tallies
c) it's an element in a non-continuous lace
d) it's a piece of continuous lace which has been joined/finished while still on the pillow (and then not always, if someone's woven in the loose ends).
None of which conditions apply to the piece of lace in question...
Long-windedly yours, pursuing as many lace-related "how's" as her brain can process,
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Tamara P Duvall
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Lexington, Virginia, USA
Formerly of Warsaw, Poland
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